by Richard Wake
"Look, I hope you're right," he said. "But I can just as easily see Benes sitting at the end of our big conference table telling me that, in the bigger picture, we must realize that upsetting a sovereign, neutral government that permits us to run our espionage operations from its soil and blah, blah, blah."
Then, more silence. Two 5-year-old kids ran by us, giggling and pointing at the deer. Their mother, or a harried facsimile of one, rushed past us in pursuit.
"But let's not worry about that yet," Groucho said. "First things first: we need to prove that it's true, that it's really happening. Do you have any ideas how?"
I really didn't. Then again, I really hadn't made up in my mind that I was going to get back into the spying business until the day before. Groucho began thinking aloud, about having me become a part of Fritz Blum's network.
"No," I said. "I'm a free agent here, or I'm out. I work for you and report directly to you. You can tell Blum I'm in the game, but I don't work for him. That's non-negotiable. Besides, it doesn't make any sense. I'm going to be fishing in a different stream than his boys."
"Well, then you're going to need a radio," Groucho said. "And you're going to need some training. There's a little more involved in this than just being a courier."
"How hard could it be? They fucking let you do it," I said.
My bravado was beyond false. I think Groucho knew that, too. He looked at his watch, and we arranged for another meeting -- this one, in his hotel room. Before he left, I wanted to tell him about the meeting at police headquarters with Ruchti, the one I found so unsettling.
"What's the cop's name?" Groucho asked.
"Ruchti."
"Peter Ruchti?"
"Yeah, you've heard of him?"
"You might say that," Groucho said. "Peter Ruchti is an officer in the Swiss intelligence corps, which is really about two guys whose idea of covert communications is using a couple of tin cans and some string."
"No," I said. "He's just a cop, a homicide detective. He's investigating the murder."
"No, he's a spy," Groucho said. "And seeing as how he used his correct name, my guess is that he wants you to know."
Part II
15
A fortress on Talstrasse, the Baur au Lac was Zurich's grandest hotel, where the swells had the swellest of times and paid handsomely for the privilege. The key selling point was in the name: the view of Lake Zurich. In my mind, though, it came up a little short in that department because the hotel was not on the lake itself but about a block back. And while it was true that the view was uninterrupted by any buildings, there was a small park and about six lanes of traffic between the hotel and the lake, traffic that you could hear with the windows open. It was not some perfect idyll within the city. Of course, that was the opinion of someone who had never stayed there and likely never would. I couldn't afford to be a regular customer, but that did not mean I couldn't afford to be critical.
Still, I was sitting in the lobby bar, having a drink, and surveying the swells. My tiny table was in the corner, my view of part of the lobby obscured by some sort of potted palm. This was an amateur mistake, but seeing as how I was an amateur on my first real spying mission, oh well. Better to miss part of the room than to get the waiter to change my seat, which would just have drawn attention to my presence.
I had been there for about 20 minutes, and my second Manhattan had materialized, and it was all very normal, other than the tightness of my sphincter. It was a busy room, and while the typical table had two people seated, there were plenty of singles -- having a drink before dinner, waiting for a companion, just reading the afternoon paper and unwinding amid the marble and the tapestries. In some cases, spying involved physical danger and derring-do. In my case, it involved drinking and observing people. So, as it turned out, I had really been a spy for my whole adult life.
The plan had been to stay for a third drink, but no more. Again, that would have likely drawn some attention -- from the waiter, if no one else. I wasn't sure exactly what I was hoping to see -- Groucho had said I should start doing this every night, here and at a couple of other hotels, just a drink or two. Between that and my typical roster of client lunches, I would see more than I imagined, he said, as long as I kept my eyes open. And so it was, near the bottom of my second Manhattan, when Klaus Berner arrived in the bar with a man who I recognized but did not know.
Berner was a vice president in charge of something-or-other at the Swiss national bank. They had a lot of vice presidents, and I had met most of them at one time or another. Precisely what they did was another question. Then again, precisely what I did in my day job was also open to debate, if anyone cared to think about it. And while I didn't know the name of Berner's companion, I did know the face. I knew it because it was one of the 50 or so men whose photographs Groucho had given me to study.
He had made me up a packet of portraits after our talk at the Fraumunster. Apparently, one of his tasks while in Zurich was assembling this Nazi rogues gallery, and now he was picking and choosing photos for me from a much more extensive collection. It filled an entire briefcase, and not a small one. I didn't bother asking him how he had gotten them, although they looked quite official, like the kinds of photos that big companies, or big governments, kept in their personnel files.
He appeared to have two copies of every photo. Included were the head of Germany's legation in Zurich, and a few other people who worked there who were known to be spies. I handed one of the snapshots back to Groucho.
"I already know this asshole," I said, explaining how I had come to be acquainted with Ernst Meissner, the smarmy census taker, and his story about offering business contacts and socializing opportunities.
"You know that's bullshit, right?" Groucho said. "The truth is, the Nazis have organized the true believers and made sure, if they aren't already, that they're armed and ready. You know, just in case the time comes when the Wehrmacht decides to cross the border and learn to yodel."
"We kind of figured that."
"Yeah, and you know what else? The Swiss have kind of figured that, too. I'm pretty sure it keeps your pal Ruchti up at night."
Berner and his companion sat at a table on the other side of the lobby. I'm pretty sure he didn't see me. I knew I had seen the face of his friend, and that it was in my collection of photos -- photos that, coincidentally, were in a file folder in the briefcase that was currently nuzzling against my right calf.
Did I dare? I scanned the room. There would be nothing unusual at all about a lone traveler grabbing a file folder from his briefcase for a quick peek. I was seated against the wall -- at least I had gotten that part right -- so no one could see over my shoulder. The big plant to my right -- which really could stand to be watered a bit more regularly, given the price of the Manhattan -- would shield me from that direction. So why not?
With the file folder as close to my chest as I could manage while still opening it, I riffled through the photos. About halfway through, I found my man. Now I needed to see that name written on the back, except I did not dare remove it entirely from the folder. So, instead, I kept my finger on the photo inside and flipped over the entire folder and then read what was on the back:
Walter Sparberger
Deputy Minister of Finance
On the one hand, there were probably a dozen reasons why the German deputy minister of finance would be meeting with a vice president of the Swiss national bank. On the other hand, if there really was a gold laundering operation underway, who better to coordinate it than a pair of functionaries who were pretty high up in their respective organizations, but not so high as to dirty the hands of the truly important people.
I was thinking all of this, and looking down one more time into the file folder, when a voice startled me.
"Herr Kovacs, a pleasure to see you."
It was Berner and Sparberger, standing at my table, standing above me and looking down at me and my file folder.
I flinched and yanked my hand out of the
file and placed it on my lap. Berner said, "I apologize. I have startled you. Working after hours?"
He introduced me to Sparberger, offering his name and title. No secrets, then. I explained that I was just checking a contract for an error that, as it turns out, was not an error after all.
"Alone?" Berner asked.
"Stood up, it appears," I said, shrugging. The two of them offered weak smiles. I said, "I haven't given up yet, though -- not until I finish this drink, anyway."
"Well, good luck," Berner said. He and Sparberger headed into the restaurant for dinner.
16
I stopped at my flat to change my clothes, then headed to Cafe Fessler. Manon was overnight in some godforsaken place at some godforsaken farm show. Or as she said, "Cutest goat contest, followed by judging the butter sculptures, followed by a half-hour of scraping the shit off of my shoes."
The weather had turned cold and wet, which kept most of the fossils at home for the night. The last one left the cafe at about 10:15, at which point Gregory locked up and turned off the outside lights. I had already told him that we had a job this evening, and he motioned into the back room and then up the staircase that led to his flat.
It was a massive space -- small kitchen and eating area, large living room and three bedrooms besides. Henry and Liesl had the same setup, two floors above. The level in-between could have been another apartment but was instead used as a storage space for tables and chairs and fixtures and such. This way, it gave them all a little more privacy.
Only two of Gregory's bedrooms were furnished. The third was used for storage, a maze of half-filled boxes and mismatched furniture pieces. Only now, in the far corner, hidden behind the warren of shit, were a wooden folding chair and a small round table, upon which sat the radio that Gregory would use to transmit Alex's report of the meeting between Berner and Sparberger.
"Let me turn it on," Gregory said. "It's going to take a little while to warm up."
He flicked the switch, and the dial lit up, and I wondered for the tenth time exactly what I had done by allowing Gregory to get involved in all of this. Slowly, you could hear the tubes inside the radio begin to hum. Gregory actually put his hand on the radio, to feel the temperature rise. He did it lovingly if that was possible.
It had started when Groucho insisted on the radio. He said, "If you're insisting on being a free agent, as you call it, then you will need it to communicate. The mails aren't quick enough except for the most routine messages."
He gave me a handbook on Morse code, as well as a copy of the King James Bible, all 1,279 pages of it. The system we used would be simple enough. If we were sending a message on August 20th, we would go to page 821 of the bible -- always add one page. Then we would substitute letters on the page for numbers. If we wanted to transmit the letter T, we would count the number of letters on the page until we reached the first T, and that number would be sent. It was easy to execute and pretty much uncrackable. Even if someone found the book and figured out the date part, the extra page would likely confound them forever.
"Okay, let me start on the message," Gregory said. I handed it over. It was simple enough: "Brenner met tonight with Sparberger." But seeing as how this would be our first real transmission -- we had performed one test -- we were both nervous.
Groucho had said that the radio would be shipped to me by regular mail, but he said that he would not risk it being sent directly to my flat or to the bank. "Ruchti knows you're up to something, which means the Nazis in the legation might at least suspect," he said. "We just can't take the chance. We need a third party."
My only third party was the Fesslers. So they had it shipped there. When it arrived, I would think of some explanation. And as it turned out, when it did arrive, Henry didn't even think twice. He signed for it and, when I came in for dinner, he said, "You had a package delivered here this morning. It's in the back. I'll get it for you in a few minutes." First, though, he was going upstairs to drop off his Manhattan and a glass of Riesling for Liesl. Then, by the bar, I heard Gregory tell him, "Don't bother, I'll get it for him." And then, a few minutes after that, Gregory brought me the package, about the size of a shoebox. It was apparent that he had opened it and rewrapped it.
"So, explain," Gregory said. He sat down, and the look on his face was one part excitement and one part disdain.
There seemed little point in lying. It's not as if I could argue that I was joining a shortwave radio club as a hobby. Gregory, Henry, and Liesl already knew about what I had done in Vienna, and the deal I had to make with Czech intelligence to get all of us to Zurich, and Leon to Paris. They knew I was running the bank as part of the arrangement. They had probably assumed that I was more involved than I was before somebody put a bullet in Michael Landers' head. So, well, what the hell. I told Gregory everything. The story about the Nazi gold really set him off.
"Those goddamned--"
"What ones? The Germans or the Swiss?" I said.
"All of them. But especially the goddamned Swiss. You have to stop them. And you have to let me help."
"Wait, wait, wait. No. This can't happen."
"You just told me you're a free agent. So you're free to recruit some assistance. I'm your assistance."
"No, damn it. No. Absolutely not. N-O. There's no way I can let you get involved in this."
"I'm already involved in this." Gregory pointed to the box on the table.
"No you're not, not really," I said. I think I spent the next five minutes babbling myriad variations of the phrase "no fucking way." All I could think about was Henry, and how much he loved the life where his father was just a normal father, not the guy who ran a protection racket, and how he would kill me if he found out.
"Just listen to me," Gregory said. I had pretty much talked myself out, and he waited until I was done. "If it wasn't safe to mail the radio to your flat, then it's just as unsafe for you to transmit from your flat. We both know that the technology exists to detect the transmissions, which means the Germans likely have that capability here. For all we know, that's why the guy got shot through the head, because they caught him transmitting."
"We don't know that," I said. I was weakening.
"Alex, you have to let me do this. It will help you, and you know it even if you won't admit it, but I really need this. I need it for me. I'm dying of boredom here. I miss the game. I miss the action. And if I can't ever have that back, I can have this. And I can do something for my country, for Austria. Alex, I need this. It might be my last chance."
Twenty years earlier, Gregory had hired me for a summer job at the restaurant -- Henry's dad, our friendly neighborhood mobster. Now he was begging me, half pathetic but half defiant. So I agreed. He learned the Morse code in a couple of days. The practice transmission went off perfectly. And now, on our first real night, after I checked over the message, Gregory sent it with a steady, even cadence. He kept the Morse code cheat sheet at his side, but it he referred to it, I didn't notice.
After sending, we waited in silence for an acknowledgment from London. The letter G would mean that Groucho received and understood the message. The letter R would mean that they needed a repeat. Silence for more than five minutes would mean they never received the message.
Two minutes, three minutes, then:
Dash, dash, dot.
The letter G.
Gregory and I hugged as if we had just bombed Berchtesgaden. He flipped off the radio and offered me a drink, but I declined. Turning to leave, I looked at him and nodded, and we both laughed as we repeated the one rule that both of us had agreed upon as inviolate:
"Henry can't know."
17
Manon went home to Lyon for Christmas and New Year's. I asked her if she was going to tell her family about me. Her reply was a laugh. Not a giggle, not a smiling titter, but a brief explosion of a guffaw. Imagine your best friend's drunken belly-laugh when he recalls the story of the time when you drank beer for the first time, and he literally dropped you in a heap ju
st inside the vestibule of your building. Now cut that in half. That was Manon's reaction.
"Darling," she said. She must have seen the hurt on my face and was backtracking. "We are not children anymore. I do not practice writing 'Manon Kovacs' on the inside of my school copybooks. I do not gossip about you with my friends -- although Liesl does pry a few details out of me every once in a while, but that's more about her knowing you than anything else. Because I don't act like a schoolgirl doesn't mean I don't love you. Because I very much love you."
In all, it was a decent salvage on her part. But I would close my eyes and hear that laugh for weeks afterward.
The newspapers, all through that time, were full of talk of the "sitzkrieg" or the "phony war." The Poles didn't think it was so phony, of course. They had lasted about five weeks, give or take, before the Germans pushing from the west and the Russians pushing from the east strangled the breath out of a proud army that actually fought nobly, given everything. It was such a shame. When you talked to somebody about Poland, if one of you didn't use the term "poor bastards" to describe them, it was an upset. They had done nothing wrong. There was no good reason why they should be the volleyball of Central Europe, batted around strategically sometimes and simply smashed at other times. Their only offense was an accident of geography. Poor, poor bastards.
But since then, nothing. The Christmas markets in Zurich were their usual charming selves, full of kitsch and crap and smiling families from the hinterlands, making a day of it. Christmas in my flat was typical -- no tree, no lights, no kitsch, no crap. Liesl tried to embarrass me into decorating, but I refused to be embarrassed. Christmas was for children. Period.
Still, I bought a bracelet for Manon and received a necktie from her to go along with her belly-laugh. It seemed about right. I also bought small gifts for Henry, Liesl, and Gregory, because on Christmas Eve, the cafe would close at 2 p.m. and there would be a family celebration, and if they weren't my family -- along with Leon in Paris -- then I didn't have a family. My father and brother in Brno weren't speaking to me anymore after I chose a life of spying over a life of selling magnesite. But the truth was, they were jealous, seeing as how the Nazis had forced them to sell them the mine for about an 85 percent discount to what it was worth and to continue running it on a pittance of a salary. The root of their jealousy was that when they bought out my share in 1938 -- after I fought them just to give me a share -- they had not had such foresight and had only fucked me by about 50 percent.
